Category: General

Conspiracy Theories and Fortuitous Data – Philosophy of the Social Sciences, iss. 40, 2010

Joel Buenting and Jason Taylor

Sometimes you read a paper and think “I wish I’d written this.” Sometimes you read a paper after finishing a PhD on a particular topic and go “Dammit! I should have thought of this.” “Conspiracy Theories and Fortuitous Data” is my “Dammit!” paper; the notion of fortuitous data which Joel Buenting and Jason Taylor present as a demarcating factor between warranted and unwarranted conspiracy theories is something I wished I had dreamt up and included in the thesis.

Now, the preceeding paragraph might suggest that I really like this paper (and I do) but it doesn’t mean that I don’t have issue with it. Whilst the notion of fortuitous data is a useful one, I don’t entirely agree with:

a) the definitions of both “conspiracy theories” and “official stories” Buenting and Taylor use which

b) means that I think there is a bit of a problem about how they use fortuitous data to demarcate between conspiracy theories and official stories and

c) I don’t think the demarcation, as they present it, tells the full story of the role of fortuitous data in conspiracy theories.

Buenting and Taylor start with an interesting distinction between views on the rationality of conspiracy theories (as found in the existing literature):

Issues surrounding the rationality of conspiracies have received increasing attention among epistemologists. Central to these discussions is the question of whether it is ever rational to accept or believe a conspiracy. Opposing views can be distinguished based on how they approach conspiracies. According to the generalist view, the rationality of conspiracy theories can be assessed without considering particular conspiracy theories. On this view, conspiratorial thinking qua conspiracy thinking is itself irrational. The particularist view about conspiratorial thinking denies that the rationality of conspiracy theories can be assessed without considering particular conspiracy theories. (p. 568-9)

They note that they are particularists (as am I, under this schema) and then note:

We suggest that the presence of fortuitous data helps distinguish at least prima facie reasons to hold some conspiracy theories as rational. Presence of fortuitous data, we claim, is good reason to dismiss a conspiracy theory as irrational. … We note that the presence of fortuitous data in an accepted conspiracy theory lends credence to the claim that fortuitous data can help to demarcate rational from irrational conspiracy theories. (p. 569)

Buenting and Taylor’s overall argument, that we should judge individual conspiracy theories with respect to the evidence rather than with respect to judgements about the general class of things called “conspiracy theories” is one that I am on record as endorsing (I wrote a doctoral thesis on this, for example). However, where Buenting, Taylor and me differ is on what gets counted as being a conspiracy theory. They make use of David Coady’s defintion, which contains in it a condition for being a conspiracy theory is that it must be in conflict with some official story (or official theory as I tend to call them).

I’ve remarked on this kind of definition before and I still find this requirement that conspiracy theories are not official stories to be a strange one because it means officialness plays a weird role in demarcating conspiracy and non-conspiracy theories. For example, it means that a conspiracy theory can suddenly become a non-conspiracy theory because it has been endorsed by some official source. Now, to be fair, Coady doesn’t think that official stories are necessarily any better, epistemically-speaking, than conspiracy theories; he is just respecting the intutition that “conspiracy theory” has pejorative connotations (an intitution I push against in my definition), but I still think this is a weird thing to respect. How do we make sense of cases like Watergate and the Moscow Show Trials if this is the operative definition in play? That being said, Coady’s definition is popular amongst my peers and the eventual book I will write will need to address, in fulsome detail, my worries with this particular condition of his definition.

Moving on:

Why do we accept a particularist approach to conspiratorial thinking? Choosing to believe a conspiracy theory is the choice to believe in one theory (the conspiracy) over another theory (the official story). Though this may seem obvious, it is crucial to note because it draws to attention the idea that a rational choice to believe any theory depends on considerations of evidence. Judging any theory to be insufficient independently of considerations regarding the evidence is irrational. Thus, a rejection of conspiracy theories simpliciter seems irrational; rational rejection or acceptance of a theory must supervene on the quality of evidence for or against that theory. (p. 569-70)

Whilst I agree with the general sentiment of the authors, that we should inspect the arguments for a conspiracy theory rather than reject them outright because they belong to the class of things called “conspiracy theories,” I think the notion that it’s a theory choice between conspiracy theories and other (non-conspiracy) theories is problematic, for at least two reasons.

1. As Charles Pigden has argued, sometimes the choice of theory is restricted to different conspiracy theories (any explanation of 9/11 seems to involve choosing a conspiracy theory, for example).

2. It isn’t clear from Buenting and Taylor’s paper what work “official” is doing with respect to these things they call “official stories.” Unless we finesse what an official story is and what beliefe in such a story entails, it’s hard to know why they run this particular distinction. Since Buenting and Taylor do not define official stories, this is a problem. Are they using Coady’s definition of “official story” or do they have some other defintion in play?

This worry about this lack of a definition for “official stories” is compounded by what Buenting and Taylor list as examples of official stories which are also examples of conspiratorial thinking which they then refer to as “uncovered conspiracy theories” (p. 570). They talk about Watergate, for example, as a reason for adopting the particularist approach (an approach, as I said before, I have no issue with) but if Watergate is an uncovered conspiracy theory, does that mean that official stories can be uncovered conspiracy theories (the approach Coady takes) or are they operating with some other notion of “official story”? Once again, the lack of a definition for this crucial term is frustrating, because, by-and-large, I like this paper (and I wish I had written most of it) and it would be quite simple to fix this issue; either state explicitly that the notion of “official story” in use here is Coady’s or state how they differ.

Buenting and Taylor go on to say:

Uncovered conspiracy theories suggest that it is sometimes rational to believe conspiracy theories and that sometimes conspiracies occur. These cases strongly suggest that assessing the rationality of a conspiracy theory should be done on a case-by-case basis. Thus, these cases suggest that if we are to take conspiratorial thinking seriously, we ought to adopt the particularist approach.

This is a victory of sorts for the conspiracy theorist, but a minor one. A conspiracy theorist wants something more than the (backhanded) compliment that her theory type is not unequivocally irrational; a conspiracy theorist wants recognition that her theory token reflects the true state of affairs, the actual explanation of the event in question. (p. 570)

Hear hear, I say (and that last paragraph is beautiful; I wish to steal it and make it my own). That being said, surely it depends on what your definition of “conspiracy theorist,” is? I take it that anyone who believes any conspiracy theory turns out to be a conspiracy theorist. The authors could be argued to be claiming conspiracy theorists are what my supervisors and me coined as being “conspired world theorists” (because of their emphasis on both the type and the token) and I think it would be a mistake to think that the former (conspired world theorists) are necessarily the latter (people who hold to specific conspiracy theories). This is a problem of definitions, again, and to a certain extent it follows from the authors’ use of Coady’s definition, which has it that conspiracy theories are contrary to official stories.

Their reliance on the Coady definition, however, does get them their demarcating criteria between rational and irrational conspiracy theories:

“We take the difference between a rational and an irrational conspiracy theory to hinge not only on its explanatory power, but also on one feature of the evidence for the official story to which it is opposed, called fortuitous data.

What is fortuitous data? It is data that:
i) supports the official story; but
ii) fits the official story too well; is “too good to be true.” Finally,
iii) the “lucky” nature of the data is left unexplained by the official story. (p. 572)

Buenting and Taylor take it that fortuitous data is a property of evidence that supports some official story and is part-and-parcel of the contrast between conspiracy theories and official stories. As we have to chose which story or theory to be believe, we have to consider the evidence. Now, I kind of agree here that we often when considering conspiracy theories we are talking about contrasting one explanation with another, but this is a feature of any situation where there are competing explanations, rather than one that is unique to conspiracy theories (fortuitous data may well be found in non-conspiracy theories).

The focus on conspiracy vs. official theories seems to be making this more complex than it need be; what if the contrast is between two clear conspiracy theories (for example, you might have a case where its obvious a conspiracy was responsible for some event and in both cases you might also reasonably assume that the conspirators are putting out disinformation)? I don’t think this analysis needs to talk about official stories because I don’t think fortuitous data needs to be restricted simply to official stories.

[T]he lucky nature of fortuitous data is crucial. It tries to capture the idea that the nature of some evidence is just so lucky that it cannot be shrugged off as mere chance; the luckiness of events requires explanation.” (p. 573)

One example the authors use to illustrate a case of (seemingly) fortuitous data is American Airlines Flight 77’s crash into the only section of the Pentagon reinforced to withstand such an impact.

[T]he official story explains why the plane crashed into the Pentagon rather than into some random neighborhood (for example), but it does not explain why the terrorists choose that particular part of the Pentagon rather than any other. But, the plane hitting the Pentagon where it did—rather than anywhere else — is highly fortuitous — given that the Pentagon was reinforced only in that section. Moreover, that the plane hit the refurbished section of the Pentagon rather than anywhere else suggests that the pilots intended to hit just that spot. (p. 573)

The convenient location of the impact is a question 9/11 Truthers continue to hammer home; it looks fortuitous for the accepted explanation of the attack on the Pentagon that it hit there (rather than in a section which had not been reinforced to withstand such an impact).

Supporters of an official story do not (normally) find the “lucky” nature of fortuitous data problematic; conspiracy theorists do, emphasizing the fact that the “lucky” nature of the data points toward a different explanation. Is the conspiracy theorist justified in holding this? Consider the Pentagon Case again. How does the official story account for the location of the plane crash? In so far as it is merely a plane hitting the Pentagon, the official story can account for this by pointing to the (supposed) terrorists who hijacked Flight 77. Period. But, the official story is silent about why the plane hit the Pentagon where it actually hit the Pentagon. (p. 574)

I like this example because it provides for a nice illustration of how some piece of evidence might be considered by some as being fortuitous data and by others as what I will call “fortunate data”, evidence which could be construed as fortuitous data but really is just an example of chance.

Buenting and Taylor, having come up with an example of a very interesting demarcation between conspiracy theories and other (non-conspiracy) theories ask the obvious question: Is there an example of fortuitous data we can point to to show this demarcation works? They answer “Yes”, writing:

[T]he Watergate scandal is both an accepted conspiracy theory, and it also contains (at least) one instance of fortuitous data. (p. 576)

As previously mentioned, Buenting and Taylor refer to Watergate as “an accepted conspiracy theory”. Under the definition they have borrowed from Coady, they should be referring to this as an official story. Once again, the lack of a definition for what they take it are “official stories” is, I think, problematic.

That being said, Watergate is a good example of the way in which some data ends up being fortuitous rather than just fortunate because of the infamous eighteen and an half minute gap in the recordings of conversations Nixon had with officials about the Watergate Hotel break-in.

That the tapes had such a gap, while showing no involvement on the part of Nixon:
i) supports Nixon’s story (i.e., the official story); but
ii) the “gap” in recording is “too good to be true,” which suggests that
Nixon is hiding something; and, finally,
iii) the tape’s gap goes unexplained by the official story. (p. 577)

Contrast this example with the Pentagon example. In the Watergate case I think it’s fair to say that the eighteen and an half minute gap really is “too good to be true” and thus counts as fortuitous data, whilst the Pentagon case might be an example of fortuitous or fortunate data with respect to the official story. I like this paper and should the book version of my thesis ever get commissioned I’m going to supplement my coverage of selective evidence (chapter 5) with discussion of Buenting and Taylor’s notion and analysis of fortuitous data. I’m particularly interested in the Watergate example as they present it because it seems to be that it’s a case where fortuitous data and selective evidence combine; the eighteen and an half minute gap isn’t just fortuitous but it is also an example of evidence selection in that Nixon and his cronies massaged the evidence to support the claim he knew nothing about the break-in to the Watergate Hotel.

However, I have an issue with this paper which is more than the lack of a definition for “official stories” (although it is related). I think Buenting and Taylor’s analysis would be better focussed on patterns of fortuitous data rather than just the existence of fortuitous data. One piece of data which appears “too good to be true” might just be lucky-cum-fortunate, but more than one piece, a pattern of such data, might well suggest it is fortuitous-cum-designed/conspiratorial.

Now, to be fair, Buenting and Taylor do get into this issue when they talk about luck and fortuitous data but I still think there is more to be said. Some data will be fortunate (in the sense of lucky) whilst not being fortuitous (in the sense of being “too good to be true”). Separating out data which is truly fortuitous from merely fortunate data is going to be difficult, given that a relative judgement of the data as being either fortuitous or fortunate will likely affect the way you interpret other “lucky” pieces of evidence.

Now, I freely admit that talking about a pattern of fortuitous data is going to be problematic because, as I said, some data really will be fortunate (with respect to some theory) and not examples of selective evidence or fortuitous data; talking about patterns might well end up mixing in fortunate data with fortuitous data (and counting one as being an example of the other; this is a problem which cuts both ways). However, any piece of data on its own could look fortuitous; you need context to judge the likelihood that the data is more than chancy but, rather, too good to be true. Buenting and Taylor give an example of one of the 9/11 hijacker’s passport being found close to Ground Zero, which is an example of data which is fortunate rather than fortuitous but, and this is the problem with my notion of patterns again, it could be construed as fortuitous with respect to other pieces of the evidential record.

So, what distinguishes fortunate from fortuitous data is my major question. There is, I think, going to be a certain presumption in any talk of such a distinction acting as a demarcating factor between conspiracy and other theories that we can actually tell the difference. Watergate is a nice example because it’s clear the fortuitous data was really an example of evidence manipulation; the story about the gap in the evidence was too good to be true. With respect to the impact of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, well, there are a host of factors which weigh in on whether it’s merely fortunate data for the accepted conspiracy theory or, as 9/11 Truthers would have it, fortuitous data.

Now, to stress that my worry is really just one about how to develop this material further (and how to integrate it with my own work, which uses a slightly different definition of both “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist”, I’m going to end this paper review/set of lengthy notes with one of Buenting and Taylor’s footnotes (which I think shows they are quite aware of the kinds of issues I’m also concerned with):

Here’s an interesting wrinkle with our account of fortuitous data: aren’t cases of fortuitous data “too suspicious to be untrue”? This can have a strong and a weak reading. The weak reading claims that fortuitous data points to only poorly concocted conspiracies. Consider the Passport Case again: finding the passport at the base of the towers seems too lucky, suggesting that the conspirators should have known better. Thus, fortuitous data points to poorly thought out conspiracies. Our response, of course, is that a poorly concocted conspiracy is still a conspiracy that could be rationally believed in. Thus, this weak reading can hardly count against our account, given that we want to show that sometimes it’s rational to believe in some conspiracies.

The stronger reading is potentially more troubling. Suppose, for the moment, that the CIA orchestrated the attacks of 9/11. We know that the members of the CIA are highly intelligent, so it seems safe to assume that they know better than to plant a passport. If so, then the passport has to be from the hijackers on the plane; its presence is “too suspicious to be untrue”: it just can’t be planted, because no CIA operative would be that careless. Thus, the objection runs, believing a conspiracy theory in this case would be irrational. We have two responses. First, the strong reading is not possible for all instances of fortuitous data. The lotto case is a prime example of data that is not too suspicious to be untrue. Second, for those cases where the strong reading is possible, this merely highlights the importance of other features of conspiracy theories. We do not claim that fortuitous data is sufficient for picking out rational theories—and this example illus- trates why. Thus, in cases where the strong reading is possible, the conspiracy theorist will have to defend her pet theory by referencing fortuitous data in conjunction with other features, like errant data, explanatory power, simplicity, etc. (p. 575-6)

This is the story of me doing John Ansell a good turn, a sentence I never really thought I’d write in any seriousness.

Read on!

It started with the discovery that John Ansell apparently had joined Twitter under the handle @ColourblindNZ and was tweeting thusly:

Yesterday at Waitangi I was threatened. I was abused. Waitangi Day is a facade for grievers. #WaitangiDay is really #MaorificationDay— John Ansell (@ColourBlindNZ) February 7, 2013

When will @johnkeypm start telling the truth about the Treaty? Time to face the facts: we’re being conned. #Treatygate #GuiltTrip #Brownmail

— John Ansell (@ColourBlindNZ) February 7, 2013

Which seemed quite characteristically John Ansell, especially since @ColourblindNZ was tweeting Ansell’s repeated call for a poll about whether New Zealanders really do support biculturalism:

@patrickgowernz When will TV3 cover the real truths about Waitangi Day and NZ’s history? Show courage. Show pride. #LietangiDay #GravyTrain

— John Ansell (@ColourBlindNZ) February 7, 2013

@ctrevettnzh When will your paper report the Truth? Poll REAL NZers, we’re sick of this Maorification of the media and the Government!

— John Ansell (@ColourBlindNZ) February 7, 2013

Well, I thought, this deserves a blogpost, one which I dutifully started writing late Sunday night. I tore into Ansell’s use of language, especially the way it sounded awfully close to the “White Pride” language of the various White Supremacist movements. I almost pressed “Publish” but I knew the post could do with another pass and, frankly, I was a bit too tired and cranky to that late on a Sunday night.

However, despite my better instincts, I decided to start following the @ColourblindNZ account (I’d prefer to not litter my feed with racism), and as I was settling into my bed I caught up with the antics of @ColourblindNZ, who had tweeted:

Had some great meetings today in Christchurch. Making real strides. Exciting council prospects. Take note @bobparkerchch #EndTheBrownmail

— John Ansell (@ColourBlindNZ) February 8, 2013

Proud to announce the #TreatyGate movement will contest local body elections this year under the #TogetherNewZealand banner. More to follow.

— John Ansell (@ColourBlindNZ) February 8, 2013

Am very proud that Kyle Chapman will be standing for the Christchurch City Council this year under the #TogetherNZ flag. #FightBack #WPWW

— John Ansell (@ColourBlindNZ) February 10, 2013

Wow, I thought. Kyle Chapman, failed mayoral candidate for Christchurch but, more importantly, a former director of the New Zealand National Front (i.e. former leader of a bunch of Neo-Nazis).

That should have rung alarm bells and made me think twice that John Ansell and @ColourblindNZ were one and the same, but it didn’t.

Why not? These are probably all post facto rationalisations for my lack of scepticism, but, for one thing, I could see Ansell pushing the “Treatygate” angle ahead of his “equality for all” banner which is (meant to be) the “Together New Zealand” brand, since his new blog is not “Togetherness New Zealand” but “Treatygate”. Given that he has placed a lot of his energy on the claim there is some massive rort-cum-conspiracy being run by both Māori and the Government against “us” Pākehā, I could kind of see him reaching out to fellow travellers like Kyle Chapman ((Ansell has also joined forces with Vinny “Mr. News” Eastwood (who is the kind of conspiracy theorist who seems to be both a classical left and right wing conspiracy theorist), probably New Zealand’s preeminent conspiracy theorist (seriously: he was given a chance to speak at David Icke’s packed out talk a few years ago, has an internet radio show with a substantial listener base in the US; Eastwood’s even interviewed Nicky Hager, which was interesting and awkward all at the same time). This won’t play well with the usually serious and dour New Zealand public who still really aren’t quite sure of the value of social media (behold, “Seven Sharp”) and are, in this case rightfully, worried that bloggers, pod and vodcasters and the like are really just part of a giant conspiracy theory generator; Eastwood is that generator.)). I’m still unsure as to whether it was all that much of a stretch to believe the tweets about Ansell and Chapman were genuine.

Firstly, given Ansell’s reliance on the works of people like Martin Doutré and Kerry Bolton, who have not just expressed opinions sympathetic to Far Right ideologies but, in some cases, defended such opinions with Far Right arguments, its not outside the bounds of possibility that Ansell has been introduced to Chapman.

Secondly, Ansell has (sometimes rightly, but often mistakenly) often made the case for either not looking into the background or other beliefs of the people he is associated with (as far as I know, Ansell still hasn’t looked into Doutré’s claims of a pre-Māori, European people living in Aotearoa me Te Wai Pounamu. Given that Doutré’s views on this material is relevant to any discussion of his ability – or lack thereof – as an historian, Ansell should be interested in looking into these claims) or claiming that he won’t buy into any allegations of guilty-by-association. Given that Chapman is no longer the director of the New Zealand National Front and has tried (albeit unsuccessfully) to distance himself from claims he is a racist first and foremost, maybe its possible Chapman (who holds to some form of segregationist policy) is now sufficiently distant from his former Neo-Nazi activities to be a credible member of team “Together New Zealand?”

Still, I suspect I should have been more incredulous.

So, long story short, I went to bed still believing that @ColourblindNZ and John Ansell were one and the same, even though I should have been doubtful the very moment I saw that “WPWW” hashtag.

A major problem in talking about conspiracy theories is that people often confuse the parody of conspiracy theorists with the actual conspiracy theories they put forward (I’m working on a paper which argues against making such a move). It’s all well and nice to knowing laugh at the kind of campaign John Ansell is running, since it smacks of a white man of privilege bemoaning the world moving on without him, but the problem with such parody (and this is a problem with satire in general) is that some people do not know that what they are experiencing is a parody and react accordingly.

I say this because it obviously didn’t occur to me, until the next morning, to think that the account might not be the work of John Ansell (that might also be a post facto move on my part; it’s just as possible that idea came to me after Lew Stoddart (@LewStoddart) mooted it). However, once the spectre that we were dealing with a parody account was raised, it suddenly seemed very unlikely indeed that John Ansell and @ColourblindNZ were one and the same, although I toyed briefly with the following idea:

@gtiso @mr_orgue @lewstoddart @theegonomist New hypothesis: not John Ansell but the volunteer assistant he was advertising for

— Matthew Dentith (@HORansome) February 10, 2013

However, when the following tweet by @ColourblindNZ appeared, the pretense was all over:

Crowd sourced shopping list: 100 white sheets, large cardboard cones, scissors. Who can help? #Fightback #GlorySuit #Pride

— John Ansell (@ColourBlindNZ) February 10, 2013

In retrospect, I should have known it wasn’t Ansell. Firstly, @ColourblindNZ seemed really good at using hashtags, which is unusual for a newbie on Twitter. Secondly, the #WPWW (which refers to “White Pride Worldwide”) tag seemed a tad extreme for Ansell (even given his like of certain books by Kerry Bolton, who is formerly of the New Zealand National Front and writes for the openly bigoted Counter-Currents Publishing). Thirdly, the clue I really should have picked up on was the fact the account was called @ColourblindNZ; Ansell has given up on the “Colourblind New Zealand” name as a brand for his project. His brand these days is “Togetherness New Zealand” (for an “ad guru” he certainly goes through a lot of rebranding; “Treatygate,” “Colourblind New Zealand” and “Togetherness New Zealand”). Whilst the person running the @ColourblindNZ account did end up using the “Togetherness New Zealand” label in their tweets, I can’t see Ansell using a label he’s dropped as a Twitter handle. Indeed, as Ansell said in his blogpost confirming that the account was not his:

For the record, I’m no longer using the name Colourblind New Zealand. As others had warned me it would be, I found the name was being wilfully misinterpreted as ‘blind to people of colour’ — which is the last thing I intended.

Still, even given the evidence, I still wasn’t entirely sure Ansell wasn’t behind the account (I suspect part of reluctance to follow the evidence, which was strongly suggestive that @ColourblindNZ was a parody, was because I had written blogpost slamming John Ansell for the @ColourblindNZ account; I hate wasting my words). Crucially, Ansell hadn’t mentioned the account at all over at his “Treatygate” blog, so I did something which I felt a bit uncomfortable about; I emailed him.

So, I think I might notify Ansell that there is a parody Twitter account. Is this me being too good a samaritan?

— Matthew Dentith (@HORansome) February 10, 2013

This is what I wrote:

Hi, John.

I thought I should touch base and tell you that there is a Twitter parody account masquerading under your name:

Tweets by ColourBlindNZ

and it is using some disturbing far right language (“Worldwide White Pride”, references to Klan regalia, et cetera). You might want to notify people on your blog that the account isn’t you. You also might like to think about starting up a Twitter account so this won’t be a problem in future.

As to why I’m doing this; I know a fair number of tāngata whenua who are getting upset with the white pride remarks the parody account is making. I may not agree with your views, but I also want a quality debate in the media, not the kind of strawman remarks the parody account is putting out there.

Yours sincerely,

Matthew Dentith, PhD

Ansell’s response (reprinted without permission, but as he printed my email to him without permission, I don’t think he’ll care) came a few hours later:

Thank you Matthew, a journalist has just told me.

I am doing a blog post, and will credit you for your generosity. I appreciate the thought.

John

This was not, as one commentator on Twitter has suggested, me trying to ingratiate myself into the cult of John Ansell. As I said in my e-mail, I’m after a quality debate (i.e. I don’t really want to have to deal with misinformation masquerading as fact, which is a problem when dealing with many conspiracy theories) and I was concerned that many tāngata whenua I knew where taking the @ColourblindNZ account seriously. I could have gone to Ansell and said “Is this you?” but I didn’t really want to appear to be accusing him of something I suspected wasn’t the case>. If he had responded to my email with “But it is me, Matthew” … Well, then, I would have had even more ammunition for my (sadly now unusable) post.

As I suspected and David Winter surmised on Twitter:

@lewstoddart Look forward to Ansell claiming he’s been victimized while his followers defend @colourblindnz‘s sentiments 🙂

— David Winter (@TheAtavism) February 11, 2013

Ansell and the commenters over at his blog have used the existence of the @ColourblindNZ account as evidence of sinister forces seeking to discredit the Treatygate movement and its leader with a smear campaign.

Ansell wrote:

As I said to Laura [the journalist who contacted him], it’s just another battle tactic of the crooked ones. It’s a compliment, as they wouldn’t be wasting their time blackening my name if they didn’t think the Treatygate message was striking a chord.

whilst one of his commenters shared this:

Not sure I would call it a “parody” JA – that is too kind. More like a desperate attempt at sabotage by deceit. Probably perpetrated by those few who have already tried to sabotage the standard blog with their absurd and repetitive postings under various pseudonyms. Now that you have successfully blocked those attempts, they have turned their feeble but nasty efforts towards the relatively infantile medium of Twitter, which is subject to very little regulation.

So, the damage is done; the Treatygate campaign, which posits a conspiracy by Māori and the Government to deny equality to all the peoples who make up the modern nationstate of New Zealand, now has (further) evidence of a conspiracy out to discredit the Treatygate campaign. Given that I’ve been accused, in the past, of being part of this conspiracy (or, at the very least, abetting the conspirators), I’m kind of waiting for someone to pull the double bluff argument and accuse me of being @ColourblindNZ.

Give it time.

Which makes out, on rereading this post, that I’m somehow annoyed by the existence of @ColourblindNZ (“How dare @ColourblindNZ confuse me with parody!”). I’m really not; yes, it’s a bit worrying that I was taken in for so long, but that kind of shows just how carefully constructed those early tweets were (although this sounds a little too much like me saying “Look, I wasn’t really being credulous afterall!”) but that’s the benefit of good parody; it should be hard to distinguish from the real thing. That being said, it’s quite obvious now that @ColourblindNZ is not John Ansell, especially when @ColourblindNZ tweets things like:

The ‘real’ John Ansell is accusing me of blackening his name. Rubbish. I ‘d never want to “blacken” a fellow traveller’s name! #NotAPatriot

— John Ansell (@ColourBlindNZ) February 11, 2013

So, why write this post? Well, for one thing, it’s always a good idea to document your own mistakes, in part because it requires thinking about them but mostly because owning your mistakes is what a good academic should do. It’s also going to be useful “going forward;” these posts are, aside from the content on John Ansell’s blog, probably the most comprehensive set of resources available on the topic of “Treatygate”; it would be a bit weird not to have a record of what happened in re the @ColourblindNZ account.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So, in conclusion, I will reiterate that John Ansell is not @ColourblindNZ and had I not wanted to wait until Monday morning to edit my post about said Twitter account, I’d have written a post which would need to be retracted with what can only be called “extreme prejudice”. ((This is not the first time I’ve confused the identity of someone with that of a parody Twitter account. I’m really hoping it is the last time.))

Oh, and if @ColourblindNZ wants to get in contact with me, I promise to not let on who you are. I’d love to find out more about you. Maybe even interview you for “Conspiracy Corner” on 95bFM.

Hello.

In another possible world I would be writing this post from the (relative) comfort of Cambridge, where I would be just starting my post-doc in the “Conspiracy and Democracy” programme at CRASSH, but that didn’t come to pass in the actual world; I am still in Auckland, I am still unemployed and I am currently regretting not owning an electric fan.

2013 has not started well. Still, let us not focus on the negatives.

Well, actually, lets. For example, Kerry Bolton has written what I suspect he thinks is a withering attack on my qualities over at Counter-Currents Publishing. Bolton, for those not in the know, is a bit of a radical figure in right-wing politics here in Aotearoa me Te Wai Pounamu (New Zealand), to put it lightly. I suspect he is trying to give as good as he has gotten, as New Zealand academia has not been kind to him (although I would hardly say criticism of him has been unfair). I would be worried about Bolton calling into question my doctoral qualification, but the extent of his criticism is that I wrote a succinct thesis and could have cited more widely.

Still, check out the comments thread to assess for yourselves the calibre of his fellow travellers. If I was Bolton I’d be quietly embarrassed that no matter what he does to try and look like a respectable member of the far-right, his friends keep talking up the whole “racial purity/white supremacism” thing.

Relatedly, the John Ansell bandwagon seems to have stopped (sometime in November if the lack of posts there is any indication), although possibly they’ve moved the discussions to e-mail lists and the like (things were getting messy). Given that Ansell wasn’t saying anything particularly new (and thus interesting) I had stopped paying attention to “Treatygate” fiasco, but Queen of Thorns (a much better and prolific blogger than me) wrote a post about it, extolling my virtue, so… Well, the lesson here is that the people of the extreme right hate me, whilst those on the Left (for the most part – there are some notable exceptions) love me.

Which kind of plays into Bolton’s attempt at character assassination. Damnit!

My biggest regret of 2012? That Aspen, who took me to task for criticising his thesis that “Doctor Who” is really a vessel for revealing the Illuminati blueprint, failed to live up to his (e-mailed) promise to take me down.

So, what’s actually new? Well, “Conspiracy Corner with Dr. Dentith” resumes next week and I’ve got a wealth of content to draw upon. For example, the whole “Alex Jones shouts at Piers Morgan” debacle, along with the strange (and likely fictitious) story of John McAfee’s spy operation in Belize is fodder enough for a fortnight. If you add in the talk about the spying on, and classification of, the ‘terrorist’ “Occupy Movement,” which is making the rounds (yes, it’s a Naomi Wolf piece and, I agree, she seems a bit suspect at the moment) I can definitely make the beginning of February before I do that desperation thing and use Google’s “Feeling lucky?” to find a suitable topic.

Still, David Bowie has a new single (and a forthcoming new album), so life, at the very least, is going to get better. I bet someone has already written a post about how the video encodes hints about the coming NWO.

It seems they haven’t.

Give it time.

Yesterday evening saw me present a short, twenty minute presentation at the 3rd Auckland Nerdnite, entitled “We’re all Conspiracy Theorists now! (or, we should be).” Whilst my talk was well celebrated, I was somewhat (and deservedly) overshadowed by a talk about lasers.

Everyone loves lasers.

Anyway, the slides for the talk can be downloaded/viewed here and the text the talk was based upon is appended below.

We’re all Conspiracy Theorists now! (or, we should be)

Good evening, people.

The following talk you are about to hear is real. The conspiracy theories I will present are believed by people not unlike yourselves. Audience discretion is advised.

Fact: We are all conspiracy theorists.

Well, not “fact” at all. I’m asserting we’re all conspiracy theorists but that doesn’t make it true. Just because I’ve got a fancy PhD on the topic of conspiracy theories, that doesn’t mean you should immediately jump to the same conclusions as I do.

Because I am a philosopher, I’m going to present an argument which, I believe, doesn’t just suggest that we are all conspiracy theorists but, rather, entails it. However, I’m going to state now the easiest way to object to my argument, which is that it relies upon us all accepting a stipulative and non-standard definition of both “conspiracy theorist” and “conspiracy theory.” As such, you can quite happily object to my argument by rejecting my definitions. I’ll even understand if you do.

So, with that said, let’s get on with it.

Many sociologists, psychologists and historians believe we live in an unparalleled age of conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorising. People like Noam Chomsky believe that conspiracy theories are a pathology of the political reasoning process which indicates that the hoi polloi don’t really understand the way our public and private institutions work, whilst people like the late Christopher Hitchens quite happily adopted certain conspiracy theories as historical fact (notably, in Hitchen’s case, the October Surprise theory). Some historians are quite happy to say that, say, the Elizabethan age was chock-a-block with conspiracies whilst many sociologists think that conspiracy theorising is pathological but also a reasonable response to the world we live in when we consider the shape and constitution of our societies.

Yet many academics (like the rest of the population) shy away from admitting to being conspiracy theorists themselves. They will often say something like “Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but…” where the “but” introduces a conspiracy theory that said academic believes to be plausible. For example, in my old Department of Philosophy I have met 9/11 Truthers, Moon Landing Hoaxers and people who are sure that Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy (not “pasty,” – a delicious Cornish treat – as I originally claimed in the first draft of this talk) for some shadowy government agency.

So, while people like talking and ruminating about conspiracy theories, they don’t like being labelled “conspiracy theorists.”

A conspiracy theorist is either someone who is evangelical about a conspiracy theory or believes some conspiracy theory.

Note the difference:

One sense of “conspiracy theorist,” means someone who promotes such theories. As examples, well, we have such luminaries as Lyndon LaRouche, David Icke, David Bellamy and John Dewey (who I’ll come back to in a minute). They want (or wanted) to persuade you believe a particular conspiracy theory.

The other sense, however, is, to my mind, the more interesting. I could be a conspiracy theorist about the crowning of Charlemagne, but as I never mention anything about this theory it would be irrational for you to call me a conspiracy theorist because I could respond with “But I’ve never even talked about conspiracy theories!”

In this sense of “believing some conspiracy theory” lots of us will qualify as being conspiracy theorists, because lots of us believe at least one conspiracy theory, whether we like to admit it or not. Such belief might be that we think some conspiracy theory is actually true or we think there is a good case for some conspiracy theory being in the pool of potential explanations for some event. I might not be entirely convinced that there was a shadowy plot by the CIA to assassinate President Kennedy but I might also not be convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

We should not be scared of being called “conspiracy theorists” and, indeed, we should shout it out on the rooftops.

Well, maybe not shout it out. But we shouldn’t be afraid to label our conspiratorial explanations as conspiracy theories.

And there it is, another controversial, stipulative definition (did you spot the first one?). I’ve just said that a conspiratorial explanation of an event qualifies as a conspiracy theory.

So, what is a conspiratorial explanation?

If an explanation is to be considered conspiratorial, then it will be an explanation which cites a conspiracy as being causally responsible for the occurrence of some event.

This is a very general definition, with three features.

The first is that it includes any explanation of conspiratorial activity. This includes the organisation of surprise parties which are planned by groups, undertaken in secret and have a definite end goal in mind; a good time for all.

The second is that conspiratorial explanations are not necessarily about sinister states of affairs. Accordingly, there is no contradiction in the phrase “Conspiracies of Goodness.” Thus surprise parties are still in.

The third is that all of us should be conspiracy theorists of some stripe because we should accept as true at least one conspiratorial explanation of an event, given the aforementioned features (i.e. according to my stipulative definition).

Now, I’m trying to persuade of this third feature, so let’s focus on the first two and see if I can get you onboard with number three.

The first issue: a conspiracy theory can be any explanation of conspiratorial activity, including the organisation of a surprise party.

Anyone with even a smidgen of imagination or historical literacy should be able to point to the existence of a conspiracy which is the best explanation of some event, whether it is an historical explanation of some Elizabethan treachery, the recent actions of a government hiding trade deals with a foreign nation, or a department trying to bamboozle the Minister in charge.

For example:

If you believe that the death of Julius Caesar was due to a secret plot by a group of Roman Senators, then you hold a conspiracy as being the salient cause in the explanation of Caesar’s death.

If you believe that the Moscow Trials of the 1930s were a sham, orchestrated on behalf of Joseph Stalin to legitimise state action against Leon Trotsky, then you hold a conspiracy as being the salient cause in explanation of the verdicts of said trials.

If you believe that the Twin Towers were brought down by a terrorist action, organised in secret, by members of Al-Qaeda to threaten the USA, then you hold a conspiracy as being the salient cause in the explanation of the events of 9/11.

The 9/11 case is interesting because any explanation (except for possibly the spontaneous collapse hypothesis which says the buildings just happened to collapse and it was entirely coincidental that members of Al-Qaeda happened to be flying on those planes that day and happened to be visiting the cockpits at that moment.) it requires that we believe there existed a conspiracy (a group of people, acting in secret, who desired – and achieved – some end). It seems that no matter which explanation we think is the best explanation of the events of 9/11, we’re still committed to accepting a conspiracy as the salient cause of the events of that day, whether it be the “Al Qaeda were responsible!” or the many variants of the Inside Job Hypothesis.

However, more interesting, I think, is the explanation of the Moscow Show Trials of the 1930s. Whereas the 9/11 case is an example of rival conspiratorial explanations that were posited basically within moments of the event, the conspiracy theory about the Moscow Trials is a great example of a conspiratorial explanation which was vindicated well after the fact; this is a case where a derided conspiracy theory turned out to be the best explanation after all.

(Very) Long story short. This is a very potted history and I apologise to the history buffs in the audience): In the 1930s Joseph Stalin decided that Leon Trotsky was conspiring to return to the Soviet Union and take control of the Communist Party. When Stalin’s agents found out that Trotsky wasn’t conspiring against Stalin, because Trotsky had largely given up on the Soviet Union and was trying to ignite the Communist Revolution elsewhere in the world, Stalin ordered that evidence should be damned and disinformation should be fabricated to support his particular thesis. So, over the course of a year, several former associates of Trotsky were tortured so they would testify that, yes, Comrade Leon was seeking to depose Stalin and return to Mother Russia.

The Moscow Trials of the 1930s were held in a public court and much of the proceedings were made available to the public. Some people, like the American philosopher John Dewey, were suspicious of the trial outcome, in part because they hated Stalin and wanted an excuse to engage more fully in that hatred, and so a commission of inquiry was formed to investigate the case for the guilty verdicts. The Dewey Commission examined the evidence and found it to be a wash of inconsistencies: Trotsky was in two countries on the same day; his dead son held meetings with people, et cetera. When the commission presented its findings to the British and American governments, said governments went to the Russian authorities and said “What gives?” or words to that effect, and Stalin and his cronies said “These were free and fair trials: Dewey and his mates are just vapid conspiracy theorists.”

Or words to that extent.

The findings of the Dewey Commission were basically dismissed and Dewey and co. were labelled “conspiracy theorists.” However, in 1956, when Nikita Kruschev took over from the (now dead) Stalin, Krushev admitted, in the assembly, that the trials were a sham and the Dewey Commission had, in fact, got it largely right.

The conspiracy theory turned out to be the best explanation after all.

Arguably, if you were what the Soviet government labelled a “conspiracy theorist” about the results of the Moscow Trials, you were still right to think they were a sham, as long as your reasons for believing that they were the result of an elaborate conspiracy was based upon a good argument.

It turns out that quite a number (I’m hesitating to say “a lot”) of conspiracy theories end up getting vindicated and it seems odd, to my mind, that we seem drop to the term “conspiracy theory” as soon as said theory gets the nod. What it looks like to my mind is not so much a distinction between “conspiracy theory” as a pejorative term and, say, “official theory” as a credible explanation but, rather, a difference between a warranted/reasonable to believe conspiracy theory and unwarranted/irrational conspiracy theories.

The second issue: Conspiracy theories, on my definition, need not be about sinister activities or states of affairs.

One of the reasons for thinking conspiracy theories are suspicious beliefs is that a lot of the evidence which is cited in support of them is considered to be data which is contrary to or contradictory with other, rival, explanatory hypotheses and that this data, if it were true, would show the world to be a much more sinister place than we believe it to be.

Certain philosophers have argued that, as such, conspiracy theories engender a radical and extreme skepticism about the nature of our public institutions which, in turn leads to a global skepticism about just how open, and non-conspired our world is.

Now, even if belief in conspiracy theories engendered this kind of radical skepticism, that would not be a good excuse to label belief in particular conspiracy theories as suspicious because as we should always look at the evidence and ask “Is this particular conspiracy theory warranted?” Maybe belief in conspiracy theories does make us more sceptical about the world we live in. The question is, however, is that scepticism actually inappropriate.

Arguably, some scepticism about, say, the openness of our society is warranted. Indeed, given voter suppression tactics in some parts of the world, along with the embedded corruption in other parts, depending on where you live and who you are, wholesale scepticism might be very appropriate indeed. This might be unfortunate: no one wants to live in a conspired world, but this wouldn’t be a reason for dismissing belief in conspiracy theories if said scepticism was rational.

My entire argument about us all being conspiracy theorists is predicated on my definition of “conspiracy theory:” if we accept a perfectly general definition of “conspiracy theory,” one where any conspiratorial explanation counts as a conspiracy theory, then I think it follows that we all (as long as we are historically literate people) hold some conspiracy theory (i.e. a conspiratorial explanation) as true.

Now, some of you will be thinking this is all well and good, but surely part of the problem with the term “conspiracy theory” is that there are so many conspiracy theories out in the wild, most of which aren’t plausible explanations, and that this is (another) reason to be suspicious of terming conspiratorial explanations as “conspiracy theories.” I kind of agree with you here, and maybe my answer won’t be very compelling to those of you who aren’t philosophers: isn’t this a problem for almost all types of explanations? There are a multitude of candidate scientific explanations (i.e. inferences based upon the results of scientific methodology which, if sound, would be an explanation for some phenomenon) which turn out to be implausible; only some of our theories in the Sciences turn out to be adequate explanations, but we don’t derisively refer to such theories in the pejorative sense (well, unless we’re climate change deniers or Creationists). The existence of implausible explanations doesn’t tell us anything about the plausibility of any particular explanation. Once again, if a particular conspiracy theory is any good, it will be based upon a good argument, and if we just go around ignoring arguments then we’re really not engaging with the world at all.

So, what are the potential upshots of admitting we’re all conspiracy theorists?

Well, for one thing, it might remove some of the poison from the political debates we engage in. Most of us (if not all of us) will have been in that awkward position where we’re talking with a friend about politics and said friend advances an argument about the party we both happen to dislike which sounds awfully like a conspiracy theory.

“The Nats pretend to be nice but they just want their rich mates to reap the rewards of wholesale privatisation and deregulation!”

“The Greens real solution to climate change is secretly arguing that humanity should go extinct!”

Often we want to call said friend out on their conspiracy theory but that entails that we label them as being a conspiracy theorist, and apparently that’s just not the done thing. However, if we can cheerfully admit to all being conspiracy theorists we can, hopefully, move on to say “Look, it’s a nice theory, but isn’t it a bit of conspiracy theory?” and then we can discuss whether the theory is warranted, in that is the claim for the existence of a conspiracy justified and is the existence of said conspiracy really the best explanation?

For another thing, it allows us to talk about conspiracies, the evidence for or against them and the likely state of our political world – conspired or unconspired – without the odd discrepancy which accompanies such talk about conspiracy theories: that awful turn of phrase “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but…”

Because, like it or not, most of us are conspiracy theorists not just in the sense that we hold some conspiracy theory as true but also in the sense that we often try to persuade people to also believe in our favoured conspiracy theories.

“National is evil and secretly wants to sterilise the poor!”

“The Greens are really the Red Menace: the Green co-leaders are basically just like Stalin!”

“Universities are just a Marxist breeding ground and their one agenda is to make the white man feel guilty!”

Once again, though, few of us appreciate being called conspiracy theorists..

Now, the downside to admitting we’re all conspiracy theorists is that you’re going to have to explain, when you admit you’re a conspiracy theorist, why that doesn’t necessarily mean you now think we didn’t land on the Moon. Tomorrow morning at work could be quite awkward. Even if I’ve persuaded you to use a non-pejorative definition of “conspiracy theorist” you still have to cope with common usage and that might be the best argument against my position. It doesn’t matter if there are upshots to using my stipulative definition: what people mean by “conspiracy theory” is something like “a specious claim about an unlikely conspiracy.”

Bah humbug.

Screw the dictionaries; let common usage be damned! Let’s all turn to one another and say “Hi, I’m a conspiracy theorist. How about you?”

Just a quick note to say that on the 6th of November, sometime after 6:30pm, I’ll be giving a twenty minute presentation entitled “We’re all conspiracy theorists now (or we should be)” at the 3rd Auckland Nerdnite. Details should appear here (and here) at some point in the near future but what I do know is this:

Location: Nectar, Kingsland

Time: 6:30pm